


To keep the skies clear, we stand together.

by Jeboboid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, I have literally just named this AU "Airship AU" that is how fucking vague this idea is, I have no idea what I'm doing, I want to explore it though, Likely gonna turn into a Pharah/Mercy thing because everything Overwatch I write tends to do so, This is probably gonna end up being some ensemble shit, all about them birb moms, because you're fucking right, cos it means I can pretty much do what I like, cos it's fucking mental, i love it though, i really enjoyed writing this, if you guessed "The Stars our Destination" give yourself a fictional internet cookie, there are airships and sky pirates and sword fights and corny ridiculous silliness, this setting literally came to me in a fucking dream, three guesses as to where I got the name for Pharah's sword
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7878403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeboboid/pseuds/Jeboboid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fareeha Amari is a member of the bounty hunting organization Overwatch, stationed aboard the good ship Watcher. Acting as the leader of their first-strike squadron, she distributes justice via the judicious application of boot, fist and blade.</p><p>But what happens when the disorganized pirates she's used to fighting start to become organized? As the worrying pirate alliance headed by the mysterious crew known as Talon emerges, only time will tell if she and her allies are enough to stop piracy from claiming the Stormwall Mountains in their entirety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To keep the skies clear, we stand together.

**Author's Note:**

> As stated in the notes, this setting came to me in a dream. As a result, I have only a vague idea as to where this fic is even going.
> 
> Regardless, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. It's actually the longest thing I've written in recent memory, so there we go.

Fareeha woke to a splitting headache and the sound of engines. Opening her eyes with a groan, the ceiling of her bunk greeted her. Due to the lack of snoring from below her, it was safe to say that Lena was up and about already, likely at the wheel, steering them toward port.

Cursing softly under her breath, Fareeha rolled out of her bunk and onto her feet. Staggering over to the small, wall-mounted mirror and sink she and Lena shared, Fareeha splashed some water into her face in an attempt to wake herself up, accidently catching sight of her face in the mirror as she did so.

She was a mess.

Bloodshot eyes, heavy bags, dishevelled hair, the works. Groaning again, Fareeha splashed herself with a bit more water, before rubbing her eyes as if doing so would remove the bags beneath them.

Slightly steadier on her feet now, but still fighting the headache, Fareeha crossed the tiny cabin to the small drawer in which she kept her clothes. Dressing quickly, she padded down the pockets of the waistcoat she pulled on. Finding her pocket watch within one of the pockets, she checked the time.

Staring at the watch for several seconds before actually processing what time it was, Fareeha began winding it with a snort of disgust. She’d let the damn thing unwind again, the clock having stopped at roughly 5.37. Having wound the small timepiece, she slipped it back into her pocket and trudged from the cabin, intent on finding out what time it actually was.

Finding Lena was usually an easy task, especially in the morning. You just had to listen for the loudest, happiest and strangest voice in the crowd. This was made especially easy in the mornings, when it was Lena’s shift as pilot of the airship they both served aboard as crew.

Climbing out on deck, Fareeha cast her eyes about, checking for any landmarks she recognised in the surrounding cliffs. The ship they were on, the _Watcher_ , an ugly, patchwork sweetheart of a vessel, was currently flying through one of the massive canyons which marked the route through the Stormwall Mountains. Impossible to fly over due to both the sheer height of the peaks and the unique weather of the region, any who dared try normally found themselves victim of the various storms that gave these mountains their name.

As such, the only way through the mountains was via the complex network of valleys and canyons that were almost as hazardous as the peaks themselves, but for different reasons. Within the blind corners and nestled amongst the many cliffs and caves, pirates and outlaws of all stripes dwelt, preying on the daring and the stupid who came into these passages unprepared.

Depending on the group you ran into, you could either lose cargo to theft, passengers to kidnapping, or even the ship itself, the entire crew either killed, or sold into slavery. That is, or course, if you couldn’t fight the scum off when they struck.

Snapping her gaze away from the canyon walls, which stretched up out of sight and into the sky, Fareeha made her way towards the front of the ship, to the cockpit in which she knew she would find Lena at the controls of the ship.

Arriving at the door to the cockpit, Fareeha clambered inside, throwing a greeting at Lena as she made her way to the currently empty navigator’s station. Lena didn’t reply, all of her attention drawn towards piloting them safely through a particularly narrow passage. Shuffling through the maps and charts on the tiny desk before her, Fareeha tried to place where they were while battling her headache, peering out of the plexiglass bubble that the front part of the cockpit’s wall was made of.

“Sordid passage, four hundred metres in.” Lena offered, sensing the delay in Fareeha placing their position on the map.

“Got it.” Fareeha replied, flicking to the right chart and spreading it before her. “Next left in… two hundred metres or so.”

Lena’s only response was a distracted “Aye.” Before she finally drew them out of the latest narrow section and into a more spacious region. Leaning back in her seat, she let out a sigh, wiping non-existent sweat from her brow and turning to look at Fareeha. “You got wasted last night.” She said, grinning as Fareeha put her head down on her desk. “Is someone still feeling the effects?” she asked in a voice so sweet it was sickening to Fareeha’s ears.

“Yes. And before you ask, I blame you.” Fareeha replied, rising her head just enough to glare at Lena, who laughed bright and loud, the sound reaching into Fareeha’s head like knives and making her wince.

“For what? Making sure you got to bed after you passed out on poor Torbjorn?”

“For getting me drunk enough to pass out in the first place. I can’t even remember most of what happened last night.”

“Easy enough to explain, us off shift people had a bit of a drink, and you had a lot of a drink.”

Fareeha sighed again, exasperated now. “Specifics please.”

“Someone brought rum.”

“Fuck.”

“You won it in an arm-wrestling competition, and then drank the whole thing in celebration.”

“Fuuuck.”

“Want me to continue?”

“No. I think I can guess what happened after.”

“You don’t strip at least.”

“Small mercies I suppose.”

“You started singing instead.”

Fareeha shot the pilot another glare. “What did I…?”

Lena shot her an amused grin. “Something about pretty little ladies and sailors.”

Fareeha headbutted the desk. “Fucking hell. Why didn’t you stop me?”

Lena’s grin only widened. “Cos it was funny. Also cos you didn’t offer me any of your rum.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

“I know.” Lena said, turning to face back out into the canyon, steering the airship into the passage Fareeha had indicated earlier. As she did, Fareeha turned back to her maps, tracing the route they had to follow with her finger.

“Drop seventy-five metres or so, the passage gets thin around this height, then carry on for another couple hundred metres, til we reach the slight right.”

Lena, in business mode again, acknowledged the directions with an “Aye”, and complied, bringing them down before taking them deeper into the passage. The walls seemed to press in on them, looming above the comparatively tiny airship threateningly and stifling any conversation between the pair in the cockpit.

Scanning their surroundings for hazards, Fareeha caught a glint from a way ahead. “Contact.” She reported, pulling a telescope from its holster on the side of her seat and trying to figure out what exactly she was seeing. “Looks like a… Shit.”

“What’s up?”

“Pirates.”

Lena immediately reached for the ship-wide comm. “Captain to the cockpit. We might have a situation.” Releasing the comm, she turned back to Fareeha. “Numbers?”

“Looks like three ships… No, two pirate vessels, I recognise the third.”

“Merchanter?”

“Aye. They look to be in bad shape, too.”

“Pirate markings?”

“I can’t quite… wait.” As they drew closer, the images emblazoned on the sides of the pirate ships came into focus. “Finally.”

“What is it?” Lena pressed, “who is it?”

“The Cragrunners.” Fareeha said with a grin.

Lena grinned in kind, then reached for the ship-wide comm as Jack, the captain of the _Watcher,_ climbed though the hatch, already halfway through demanding a status report. “Cragrunner airships sighted! All crew to battle-stations! I repeat, all crew to battle stations!”

Jack grunted, then turned to Fareeha. “You heard her.” He said, stepping aside so Fareeha could climb out through the hatch. “Suit up, I want you ready to go by the time we draw alongside.”

Fareeha was already moving, adrenaline pushing the last vestiges of her hangover from her mind. “Aye sir!”

\---

True to her orders, Fareeha was suited within her boarding armour, strapped into her wing-harness and ready to fly before they’d come alongside. The merchanter, the _Endless Frontier_ , had clears signs of fighting still raging on its decks, but by the looks of it, they were losing.

Turning to eye the rest of her boarding team, Fareeha tightened one of the straps on Hana’s wing-harness, before addressing them as a group. “The mission is simple; get to the _Frontier_ , clear her of hostiles, and keep her clear. Any questions?”

“Priority targets?” asked Genji, testing the edge of his sword.

“Anyone heading for the cockpit or engines. Aside from that, protect each other and protect the _Frontier’s_ surviving crew.”

A chorus of “Aye Ma’am” came back at her as the boarding party lined up on the edge of the deck. The mid-air battle drawing closer by the second.

“We wait for _Watcher’s_ first volley.” Fareeha called, waiting for exactly the right moment.

It came as she heard the sound of numerous disguised hatches in the _Watcher’s_ hull swinging open, and then felt the roar of the hidden cannons as they launched a surprise salvo into the side of the first Cragrunner airship, sending it listing to the side, one of its engine blocks already sporting gaping holes and billowing smoke.

Motioning her squad forward, Fareeha launched herself from the deck of the airship and out into space.

For a moment, she was in free-fall, the feeling of weightlessness seizing her for a moment before her wings caught the wind and suddenly she was free, soaring through the air towards the _Endless Frontier_. Allowing herself to savour the feeling of flight for a brief moment, she angled herself down and forward, gathering speed as she rocketed towards the beleaguered merchanter, trusting her squad to follower her lead as closely as they dare.

As the merchanter grew closer, Fareeha angled herself towards one of the pirates rampaging across its decks. Moments before impact, she leaned back as far as she dared, feeling her wings creak with the strain of the sudden deceleration.

Drawing her sword, _Raptora_ , Fareeha let of a battle cry of “JUSTICE RAINS FROM ABOVE!” as she landed atop the pirate she had targeted, immediately beginning to fence another as she bore the first one to the floor with her feet planted in his face and chest. She could feel her squad coming in on either side of her as she pressed her opponent back, aiming to fight her way to the merchanter’s crew, a beleaguered bunch pressed back into a ring around their more heavily injured crewmen.

Pressing hard, Fareeha smashed a vicious slash through her opponent’s guard, before removing him from the fight with a vicious uppercut from her free hand. Taking advantage of the momentary opening in the fighting around her, she leapt forwards and allowed her wings to spread, catching the wind briefly and pulling her skywards by a couple more metres.

Landing in the middle of a group of pirates, Fareeha spun, lashing out with _Raptora_ , her free hand, and her wings in an effort to sow as much chaos in their ranks as possible. It worked, and as a hole opened in their formation, Fareeha’s squad rushed into the breach, forging a bloody path towards the _Endless Frontier’s_ crew, who, seeing that relief was now at hand, fought all the harder. The pirates, surprised at the sudden advance from the crew they were just recently beating, as well as the sudden assault of these strangers from the sky, could only retreat from their onslaught.

The pirates, seeing that this particular battle was lost, began a fighting retreat towards the railing, and the safety of their own ship’s deck. As they reached the edge of the deck, however, they found only the smoke that marked the downward passage of a ruined airship. _Watcher’s_ brutal handiwork evident as it now focussed its devastating salvos on the remaining pirate ship, which began to pull away and pile on the speed as it attempted to escape. It didn’t get very far before it took multiple hits to the starboard engine block, which exploded spectacularly, sending chucks of hull spiralling into the abyss below.

As one, the pirates turned back to the crew of the _Endless Frontier_ and the boarding party from _Watcher._ Seeming to weigh their options for a brief moment, the pirates seemed to teeter on the possibility of fighting to the last, a couple even raising their swords again, before a barked order from what seemed to be their commanding officer made them drop their weapons to the deck in a discordant clangour. As one, they raised their now empty hands in a gesture of surrender.

\---

After making sure that the surviving pirates had been completely disarmed, and all of the wounded upon the deck had been tended to, Fareeha went to wait with the rest of her squad. They had claimed a section of the deck, out of the way of the merchanter crew’s path and separate from where they were keeping the captured pirates, and were tending to their own wounds and gear.

From a glance, they didn’t seem to be particularly worse for wear. Sporting a cut here, or a gash there, no one had fully escaped injury, but none had sustained anything major either. Genji was in the process of wrapping a small cut on Hana’s upper arm as Fareeha approached, and he offered her a nod as he pulled the bandage tight, earning a yelp of protest from his patient.

“Watch it!” Hana cried, glaring over her shoulder as Genji merely raised an eyebrow at her.

“I need to bind it tightly so that it does not reopen. Or would you rather it does so?”

Hana grimaced, “no…” she trailed off, still wincing slightly, “Just don’t cut off the circulation to my arm please, it’s not that bad a cut.”

“No promises.”

Fareeha chuckled, “It’s not like we’re likely to face anyone else before we get to the next port, especially now that we’ve taken care of the Cragrunners.” She smiled at Hana’s grimace, “just a nice straight run into Port Spire, and we can cash in the bounty and waste our pay for a while.” This drew a ragged cheer from her squad as they raised hands and weapons in informal salutes, “Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you’re all packed up by the time _Watcher_ comes alongside, I don’t wanna be held up by any lollygagging, you hear?”

This time, her squad acknowledged her with good-humoured groans, and went back to patching themselves up. Seating herself alongside Genji and Hana, Fareeha sent to patching herself up. Now that she was paying attention to her own body, and the adrenaline rush of battle was largely gone from her system, she could feel the various aches and pains of strained muscles and stressed joints, as well as the low burn of a couple of cuts that had managed to get through her armour.

Binding her wounds first, Fareeha then stretched out her aching limbs, groaning softly with relief as a portion of the tension in her body faded away. Removing her wing-harness, she also drew _Raptora_ again and set about maintaining her gear.

As she was finishing her inspection and maintainance, Fareeha could hear the dull roar of the _Watcher’s_ engines as it drew up alongside the _Endless Frontier_. Looking up, she could make out Lena in the cockpit of the vessel, grinning and waving with a level of enthusiasm only she could muster.

Lazily waving back, Fareeha rose to her feet and motioned to her squad to follow her as she made her way back onto the ship she called home.

“Next stop,” she muttered to herself, “Port Spire.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, post a comment if you liked this/want to give me a prompt for some other random ass stuff/noticed something wrong with my spelling/grammar/other stuff/simply want to say hello
> 
> They're always appreciated!


End file.
